Zimride

Zimride
Rideshare
Industry Service
Founded May 22, 2007 (2007-05-22)
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Key people
 Logan Green, co-founder, CEO
John Zimmer, co-founder, COO
Products Rideshare
Website www.zimride.com

Zimride connects inter-city drivers and passengers through social networking and is the largest rideshare program in the United States.[1][2][3] The service has over 350,000 users, is active on 125 university campuses, and has partnerships with Facebook and Zipcar.[4][5][6]

History

Beginnings

Co-founder Logan Green had the inspiration for Zimride after sharing rides from the University of California, Santa Barbara campus to visit his girlfriend in Los Angeles. He had used Craigslist's ride boards, but wanted to eliminate the anxiety of not knowing the passenger or driver. When Facebook opened its API to third-party developers, Green thought "Here's the missing ingredient".[7]

John Zimmer was inspired by the empty seats he had during his commute from Upstate New York to New York City while an analyst at Lehman Brothers. As a student at Cornell University, Zimmer took classes on transportation.[8] After learning of the progression from canals to railroads to highways, he viewed ridesharing as the next step towards efficiency.[9] Noting that 80% of the seats on American highways are empty, Zimmer asserts that ridesharing, "is a huge opportunity to create efficiency to save a lot of money and to reduce our environmental footprint".[10]

Zimmer and Green were introduced through a mutual friend and met on Facebook.[9] Green had posted details about his new company called "Zimride", which interested Zimmer, who had been keeping a journal about carpooling ideas.[11] Although the names Zimmer and Zimride are similar, the company name comes from the country Zimbabwe, where Green had observed locals develop a grassroots public transportation system.[9]

Investments

In 2007, Zimride received $250,000 in seed money from Facebook's fbFund, expanded to six employees, and took on Stanford and Dartmouth as clients.[2][12] fbFund selected Zimride, along with ten other startups, out of 1,000 applicants.[13]

In August 2010, Zimride announced a $1.2 million round of seed funding from FLOODGATE, K9 Ventures, Keith Rabois, and Teddy Downey.[14]

In 2011, Zimride closed a $6 million Series A round of funding from the Mayfield Fund, FLOODGATE, and K9 Ventures, bringing their total investments to $7.5 million.[12]

Growth

In 2007, Green and Zimmer launched the first version of the rideshare program at Cornell University; in six months, the service had signed up 20% of the student body.[2][6][15] Green and Zimmer promoted the service through guerrilla marketing; in particular, the pair would dress in frog suits and hand out flyers to Cornell students.[11] Later, while on a Lehman Brothers recruiting trip, Zimmer was recognized by a potential recruit, who asked "I swear I recognize you—were you in a frog suit on Saturday on campus?"[11] By 2007, Zimride was active on both Cornell's and UCSB's campuses.[10] Zimmer would later quit his job at Lehman Brothers to work with Green full-time on Zimride.[2][16]

As of April 2012, Zimride has 29 employees, has facilitated more than 26,000 carpools, has helped users travel over 100 million miles, and has saved over $50 million in vehicle operating expenses.[17][18] The service is active at over 125 universities including USC, University of Minnesota, UCLA, UCSF, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.[9][11][14][19] Universities pay around $10,000 per year to use the platform.[20] Travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles was the most popular route on Zimride.[10]

In 2012, Zimride redesigned its website for use on smartphone web browsers.[21] The new version of the site was designed by LinkedIn's mobile product and design lead Frank Yoo.[21]

Zimride was sold to Enterprise Holdings (St. Louis) on July 10, 2013. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.[22]

Structure

Users sign into Zimride through their Facebook account, which creates a profile for them on the Zimride system.[23] When a user posts available seats in his or her car, along with personal details like smoking and musical preferences, passengers can find a match for their destination.[24] The service connects people that work at the same company, go to the same school, or have mutual Facebook friends.[9] By doing this, the anxiety of ridesharing with a stranger is eliminated.[7] When looking back on why carpooling had failed in the past, Zimmer said that the number one reason was trust.[25]

Creating a Zimride profile is free.[9] The site uses an algorithm that accounts for the distance to pick someone up and the time for detouring to a passenger drop-off point.[10][26] The site then ranks the options and assigns a score to the best matches.[10] Drivers decide what to charge passengers, although Zimride offers suggested charges based on gas costs.[27] Passengers can pay with PayPal or credit card, and will receive a full refund if the driver fails to pick up.[28] The routes between San Francisco and Los Angeles and San Francisco to Lake Tahoe are both public routes, which means drivers can sell seats in their cars to buyers, who purchase the trip like a plane ticket.[11] The majority of Zimride users are women.[29]

Lyft

A car with a distinctive pink mustache that indicates its owner is sharing it through Lyft.

In May 2012, Zimride announced Lyft, an app that allows users to request a driver immediately and get a ride anywhere.[30] The company vets each driver with a thorough interview process and criminal check, and users pay for the ride with a donation, which is approximately 30% less than a cab fare.[31][32]

Zipcar partnership

In 2009, Zimride partnered with Zipcar to allow customers who have rented out a Zipcar to bring passengers on trips.[26] The plan originated years before when Zimmer reached out to Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith while working at Lehman Brothers.[11]

Results and reception

The site currently has over 350,000 registered users and has saved $50 million in vehicle operation expenses.[21] Representatives at the University of Southern California note that Zimride is "a lot different than reading a blank ad. It's been received well on campus".[9] Reuters noted "The Zimride brand promise is to reduce CO2 emissions, lower the annual strain on our transportation infrastructure and help everyone involved save money. They just may have a shot at making carpooling sexy".[9] In 2009, Zimmer and Green were named finalists in Business Week's list of America's Best Young Entrepreneurs.[20]

Zimride has partnered with concert company Live Nation and music festivals Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Lollapalooza to hold ridesharing contests that award users with prizes.[5][33][34] Zimride has also partnered with Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews Band, and Sheryl Crow to provide ridesharing to their events.[17]

Zimride users often become friends with their passengers or drivers.[10][18] Zimmer's goal for Zimride is to bring "communities together and help people save money".

Partial list of competitors

See also

References

  1. ↑ Car Sharing and Pooling: Reducing Car Over-Population and Collaborative Consumption Archived November 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.. Stanford University. April 9, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Sullivan, Colin. Startup Bets that Social Networking Will Spur Carpool Craze. New York Times. July 29, 2009.
  3. ↑ Raymond, Rose. Stop Job Costs from Sucking Up Your Salary. Fox Business. April 19, 2012.
  4. ↑ Lazlo, Luz. Zimride offers college students cheap -- and checked out -- rides. The Washington Post. December 30, 2011.
  5. 1 2 Nelder, Chris. Bikes, Car Shares and Buses: The New Transportation Era is Here Archived May 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. The Txchnologist. April 17, 2012.
  6. 1 2 Kessler, Sarah. Zimride Brings Carpooling to the Masses. Mashable. August 17, 2011.
  7. 1 2 Bell, Josh. Two Startups Harness Facebook's Power to Connect Riders to Rides. ABC News. September 4, 2007.
  8. ↑ Shaughnessy, Haydn. How to Win Friends AND Cut your Travel Costs. Forbes. November 18, 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cohen, Deborah. Former Lehman's banker drives startup Zimride. Reuters. September 15, 2010.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Booking a ride in someone else's car. Smart Planet. April 9, 2012.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Shah, Semil. Why Zimride's John Zimmer Left Wall Street to Start a Company. TechCrunch. April 19, 2012.
  12. 1 2 Garthwaite, Josie. With $6 million in New Financing, Zimride has some Car Seats to Fill. New York Times. September 21, 2011.
  13. ↑ Zimride mini-doc @fbFund Rev 2009. fbFund REV. April 13, 2010.
  14. 1 2 Tsotsis, Alexia. Carpool Community Zimride Lands $1.2 Million In Seed Funding. TechCrunch. August 23, 2010.
  15. ↑ Schomer, Stephanie. Zimride: Carpooling for College Students Archived 2012-06-15 at the Wayback Machine.. Fast Company. January 5, 2011.
  16. ↑ Eldridge, Andrea. Compute: Recycle electronics and make greenbacks. East Valley Tribune. April 6, 2012.
  17. 1 2 Takahashi, Dean. Zimride raises $6M for ride-sharing car service. VentureBeat. September 21, 2011.
  18. 1 2 New, Catherine. Apps Give Carpooling a New Twist, With Same Old Headaches. Huffington Post. April 3, 2012.
  19. ↑ Hargarten, Jeff. UMN Morris acquires ride-sharing network Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine.. Minnesota Daily. October 7, 2011.
  20. 1 2 2009 Finalists: America's Best Young Entrepreneurs Business Week.
  21. 1 2 3 Empson, Rip. Zimride Goes Mobile. Tech Crunch. April 5, 2012.
  22. ↑ "Enterprise acquires Zimride ride-matching business". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. July 12, 2013.
  23. ↑ Ridesharing, carpooling, and buses May 1, 2012.
  24. ↑ Carpenter, Susan. Here's a (cheap, green) ticket to ride form S.F. to L.A. Los Angeles Times. August 17, 2011.
  25. ↑ Kwan, Connie. Zimride's John Zimmer. Triple Pundit. November 1, 2010.
  26. 1 2 Nassauer, Sarah. Zipcar Plans Partnership With Zimride. Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2009.
  27. ↑ Koskey, Andrea. Website hooks up Bay Area drivers Archived October 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. San Francisco Examiner. December 28, 2011.
  28. ↑ Schwartz, Ariel. Ridesharing apps that could change the way you get to work. Fast Company.
  29. ↑ Logan Green – Zimride. Founderly. April 18, 2012.
  30. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai. Zimride's Lyft Is Going To Give Uber Some Lower-Priced Competition. TechCrunch. May 22, 2012.
  31. ↑ Gannes, Liz. Zimride Turns Regular Cars Into Taxis With New Ride-Sharing App, Lyft. All Things D. May 22, 2012.
  32. ↑ Fehrenbacher, Katie. Zimride launches mobile real time ride sharing via Lyft. GigaOM. May 22, 2012.
  33. ↑ Getting to the Festival Archived May 8, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. Coachella.
  34. ↑ Getting Here. Lollapalooza.
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